Just Looking: And Other Essays - Tapa blanda

Just Looking might have been titled just living. McLean describes her lifelong task of trying to learn Italian; she speaks of unmet friends, writers who have influenced her life and art. Failing faculties are examined metaphorically: hip-replacement surgery is likened to shoring up the beams of an old house. We are taken step by step through the author's cataract surgery and her overwhelming joy at seeing colours truly again. She urges against sliding into convention and habit in our latter years and warns us to stay alert so we don't not waste this precious time sleepwalking."